Bonacic Comes To Hein’s Defense

Republican State Senator John Bonacic has come to the defense of Democratic Ulster County Executive Mike Hein, attacking the NYC DEP for their recent criticism of Hein’s letter to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg urging him to tour the Esopus creek and other waterways Hein says have been damaged by DEP policies.

“The Mayor is a business person and a pretty sensible guy. He can jet off to Bermuda for a weekend because of his brilliant business success. It is hardly unreasonable to ask him to drive 90 miles to see the chocolate milk-like water his DEP has turned the Esopus creek into,” Bonacic said.

One of the claims the DEP has made is that upstate has benefitted from $1.5 billion in economic development over the past two decades. To that Bonacic suggested that New York City residents are getting a bargain.

“Even though I live upstate and no longer have the benefit of Manhattan math like the DEP does,” said Bonacic, who was born in New York City, “$1.5 billion over 20 years comes out to $9.38 per year when you consider that 8 million New York City residents drink that water. That is an absolute bargain. If they bought their water from upstate by the gallon, and gave the money to watershed area residents whose lands were taken to create the reservoirs, the word ‘fracking’ would never pass the lips of anyone in my Senate District again because we would all be rich with water lease payments instead of potential gas lease payments,” Senator Bonacic said.

And Bonacic concluded the letter by suggesting that Hein’s letter was “eminently reasonable”, then proceeded to say the mayor is “no coward” and is “not afraid to confront issues”. He ends by saying that the Mayor ought to come upstate and suggested that maybe his staff is keeping him in the dark about the problems upstate.